Posts Tagged With: God

Journey 245: Reaching Out

Everyone, in most parts of their lives, has to endure problems, trials and challenges which span from relationships, finances, work, marriages, commitments, vows, and the ever pressing concerns of health. In it, we value no one but ourselves and the only way to cope up with the challenges that comes our way is to understand why it has been there and why it has happened and what lesson has it there to teach us.

My first brush at life’s challenges comes unexpectedly and neither I nor anyone can ever understand why it has to happened so suddenly and so unexpectedly beyond my comprehension. I am stressed and depress yes, but I am prayerful and hopeful too. I had been tortured emotionally but I am getting through there. I am pained yes, but I knew this trial will pass. I am bruised yes, but I know this too shall heal. All my pains and the challenges that comes my way are constant reminder for me to reach out, not on my own and for my victory’s sake but reaching out to those whom I have left behind – my God, my family and my friends. Reckoning hard enough, I had been on the high-speed highway driving to nowhere but surely, am anchored in what God’s purpose for me. It is just unfortunate that in so doing, I have been speeding pass many others who are there to support me through.

I am grateful for my closest friend who has cancer who shared to me the film Fireproof and watched it as well as reflected on it. He knew my predicaments and he knew too well who I am in my life. He and I shared a life that only the best of friends knew and I am continually is grateful for the wonderful blessings God has given me when he shared his thoughtful suggestion about the film to reflect on. I in fact was reminded by him that we all have all our problems that we just have to face it head-on.

A friend of mine too, as with many countless others, have informed me that she has cancer. It broke me harder since I am surrounded by friends and family who are with cancers. I have already in my mind how many of them have been in the phases of life with cancer. I could not and never fathom why they, so young, has to endure it. I say to myself that one day, the physical pains will be redeemed by the renewed spirit to be an inspiration. I thought that life has to be as simple as living until our twilight years and rest peacefully in our time but God has higher purposes and direction. We are never drivers of our lives but we are mere passengers, though we have the option to hop in or not. In our life’s struggles, we have everything that others have not of which I believed will be one of the reason why God wanted us to share, share our life, our experiences and our ability to make a difference.

Reaching out is like this little boy with a twig trying to reach out a branch. It is by experiencing what we had been given that we may reach out. Reaching out to those who have made our lives significant and meaningful. It is through reaching out that our pains will be replaced with joy. It is by reaching out that our struggles will end with such victory that only we can all appreciate and share. It is by reaching out that we carefully evaluate where we are at the present and decide where we are heading in the future. It is by reaching out that we know God better, much more than we allow ourselves to know.

Categories: Journeys | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Journey 223: Of LOVE and SACRIFICE

The most prominent scenery on the Lent in the Philippines is the penitence and a showcase of self-flagellation that are as banal as those in other countries but one must be able to go beyond what one can see and experience. It is excessive show of sacrifice and of love that no man or even the church can ever question or condescend. Of love and sacrifice indeed is one feels in the penitence and the penance one is willing to do unto himself to remind him of his sins and the folly he has done unto himself and unto mankind. One must be able to go to length in interpreting that these practices are a showcase not of brut but a showcase of unquestionable love for God’s sacrifices by sacrificing himself to feel how painful God has to endure seeing his Son to death to save the sins of the world. Similarly, when confronted with this scenario, one must ask oneself: Am I worthy of the love and sacrifice of God when I have continually sinned even if I knew it was a sin?

The painful journey in penitence must not be only seen on Holy Week but all throughout our lives. Our own definition of love and sacrifice must embody that of Christ’s infinite love for us, thus, it is incumbent upon us to show love and concern for others. When we have more than what others wished for, share. When you have what others have not, ponder on and share more. When you have in abundance what others have lacked, then share more. It is by sharing what we have, in thoughts, heart and in material things that one finds its own definition of what truly is love and sacrifice in our lives. When we are loved and had been loved, then love the most. When we are cared for, then care the most. When we are sheltered, then offer shelter to strangers. When we are pained, then understand. When we are challenged, then humble oneself. It is through this that our definition of good and goodness in men can be best translated into being.

Our journeys in our lifetime counts the years we have had missed making love and sacrifice most felt on others who relied on us. As long as we live, we counted the years that has passed that we are given the opportunity to define for ourselves what is meant by sacrifice, penitence and love. Highest of all is love. It is because when we have love in our lives that sacrifice and penitence are what we do everyday without having seen with the whip unto ourselves until we bleed. It is through love that we give most of who we are and what we had for others who have come into our lives for the singular purpose of giving us deeper sense of humanity, one that is bound with inner peace and the purest of all contentment – the ones we only felt in our hearts.

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Poem 110: My Letter to God

Dear God,

There was a time, I felt losing it was the solution
Trying to think rationally but my mind is clouded, shrouded by questions
Why Me? What they have done? How could they?
But the matters rest peacefully in your Hands
You guided me through my darkest hour
With friends and family, angels near and far
Comforting me, crying with me, felt my pains,
Hear my thoughts and fought with me…

I said, I have lived enough already
But You said, “who said so?
No man can give his time his own time,
I, the Lord give it”.
I ponder it through,
Move on and though scarred, coping by and on
Life’s journey I press on

I never ask the questions why
But says why not give it a try?
Life’s challenges are there, stones, boulders, mountains
Not to stop me, but to make me climb over, move them over, win them over
The battle has begun and I won
Life is sweetest Lord in your time, not mine.

- Wendell Glenn Cagape (March 11, 2011)

Categories: Poems | Tags: , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

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